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jacquescartier

Listed below are comments made by jacquescartier between Tuesday, 28th April 2009 and Thursday, 29th October 2009.

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Scientists v Politicians: Round 3 12:00pm on 29 Oct 2009 It is not surprising the politicians and scientists disagree. But, unfortunately for the ministers, the scientists have the unfair advantage of being intelligent.
Can governments squeeze bankers' pay? 5:06pm on 05 Sep 2009 On the one hand, we have honest, hard working people like carpenters, bricklayers, mechanics, etc., helping the community and doing good work with a productive outcome, and earning a small sum.

On the other, we have tax-dodging, over-charging, less-than-zero-sum bankers who are sucking the profits out of the country, as if it's some kind of game.

Look, let them go, OK? It might hard for a bit, but let them go. Let the honest, hard working people like carpenters, bricklayers and mechanics build a better country, which is less cynical, more community based and which doesn't have as many mad, grasping, insecure merchants of greed.

You know it makes sense.
What future for media and journalism? 08:59am on 03 Sep 2009 > Market-based democracies like ours need ... robust financial systems that
> transmit cash and allocate capital where it will be most useful;

Fine, but they have to be efficient too. What we are scrapping are:

1) Financial systems that lend to hopeless risks.
2) Financial systems that won't pay for their own insurance.
3) Financial systems that rely on periodic massive taxpayer support.
4) Financial systems that suck up our pensions and use them as bonuses.

I don't mind 1% or 2% financial sectors, but we are getting rid of the 40-50% sectors - they make nothing, they use everything up, and it's a crap way to spend a working life.
Curbing bank executives' enthusiasm 11:03am on 16 Jul 2009 It's dead easy.

First, measure the risks of deals. Then tax banks with the riskiest deals more than those with the safe deals. Then, when the risky banks go broke, use _some_ of the extra tax to bail them out. Keep the rest for us, the beneficiaries of the banking system. How do you measure risk? By keeping deals simple enough to understand. And if deals aren't simple enough to understand, then they are, by definition, risky.

Right, that the banking system sorted. What's the next problem?
I could operate trains 1:57pm on 01 Jul 2009 This is just a scheme to privatise the gains, and nationalise the losses. I thought we had dunderheads in government, but now I realise we have dunces. Is there no-one who can teach them the basics?
A question of when, not if 8:16pm on 18 May 2009 It's great for the country to have a dunderhead as the speaker. He makes everybody fed up. And fed up voters dump their MPs. The longer he stays in place, the better it is for our democracy.
Soca and coca 11:14am on 12 May 2009 Increasing the price of coke is not a great idea. It does for drugs suppliers what higher oil prices does for Shell - they make lot's more money.

So let's take the War on Drugs to the true enemy - the prohibitionists who are making careers while they waste our tax money.
Honourable no more? 3:33pm on 11 May 2009 A lot of good will now come of this, because of the corrosive cynicism of the "I told you so" crowd. It's that crowd that has the MPs jumping through hoops, as they should be, given what they've been up to. Britain's still ahead of the world, after all.
Parliament's reputation brought low 6:26pm on 09 May 2009 If they used the internet to run their "meetings", we wouldn't need a physical House of Commons, and they wouldn't need second homes. Isn't it about time MPs abandoned London, and did business from their own homes?

Eventually, we could run national votes over the Internet and dispense with "representatives" entirely. We should be leading the world in "democracy", but instead we are stuck in yesteryear.
Making banks safe 1:54pm on 28 Apr 2009 > regulate ourselves into a simpler but possibly poorer world,

I hoped we'd crossed the border out of cloud-cuckoo land. When the "wild lending spree" model collapsed into a mountain of debt, did it make us richer? Nope - unless you are a "Sir Fred". The wild lending spree didn't work, so there is no other option than to regulate ourselves, is there?

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